Pedagogical discourse in mathematics classroom

Abstract

The study of pedagogical discourse in mathematics classrooms was aimed to explore the current situation of existing mathematics classroom discourse, oversee the challenges, unearth the engagement of students and teachers in pedagogical activities in culturally diverse classrooms, and uncover the methods for promoting student- friendly mathematics classroom discourse. A qualitative ethnographic method was applied within the constructivism paradigm linking with, existing relevant theories, and various scholarly works of literature to accomplish the study. The existing multifaceted realities were explored by analyzing the sequential process of transcribing, coding, categorizing, and thematizing the datasets obtained from the methods of classroom observations, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions. This study has applied Bourdieu's cultural capital theory, Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, Gardner's multiple intelligence theory, and Freire’s critical pedagogy theory while preparing the theoretical and conceptual framework and used thematic analysis methods during the data analysis part. The results showed that mathematics teachers used the writing of the mathematical formulae on the whiteboard, problem-solving, questioning the students, and answering the questions as a regular classroom activity, and beyond that, they also applied interactive pedagogical approach that engaged students in discussion, debate, interaction, and logical reasoning with ample examples in the classroom. Instructional discourse in mathematics education was worthwhile and collaborative in small groups, writing-centered, systematically planned, and organized in generating and transferring knowledge between students and teachers. In systematic, creative, and inspired communication, mathematics teachers have shown to be competent, diligent, experienced, and skilled in the areas of knowledge creation and transfer related to cultural contexts in culturally diverse classrooms. Although the mathematics teachers realized that the mathematics curriculum and textbooks were not integrated into line with the local and native cultures of real life, the teachers spared no effort to enliven the classroom discourse by orchestrating plentiful examples of incorporating existing cultures into relevant topics. Mathematics teachers integrated some of the existing cultural practices into mathematics as much as possible by involving students in lessons, drawing diagrams, collaborating with classmates, constructing teaching-learning materials, answering questions, reasoning, and dealing with fieldwork and laboratory work. The classroom discourse was innovative through these ideas: motivational and creative teaching methods, a fearless environment, student-friendly pedagogical approaches, and impeccable ICT- integrated teaching methods. However, teachers and students faced many challenges in the mathematics classroom in a multicultural environment. Although the community schools implemented an English-medium teaching method, teachers and students were not prepared to teach and learn in the English medium. This language mismatch further complicated the organization of classroom discourse. Classroom discourse was only a bilingual practice of Nepali and English although class members functioned as a miniature multilingual society, where marginalized student groups felt threatened and dominated by the culture and language of the larger groups. In such a situation, even though the teachers tried their best to make the classroom discourse meaningful; cultural and linguistic contradictions unexpectedly existed. Learning difficulties were encountered as a result of frequent student absences. The presence of large numbers of students in some classrooms made it inappropriate to correct classroom tasks and engage students equally in mathematics classroom discourse. The integration of ICT enhanced the pedagogical discourse to understand the basic concepts of mathematics although some old-aged teachers faced challenges in integrating ICT into mathematics teaching because they were given little in-service training to use the latest ICT tools which were not enough to cope with the modern tools in education. There was no adequate system for training teachers to teach mathematics in multicultural classrooms. The findings of this research can be employed in policy-level implications, program implications, pedagogical implications, motivational implications, theoretical implications, and training implications.